


some time can bring perspective that we need

by evergreenstringbean



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, chapter 2 spoilers, lot of swearing, love you guys, mostly just wrote this for the FSKL: STC group chat, soup time, they say fuck a lot, this is really gay fair warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 20:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20645045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evergreenstringbean/pseuds/evergreenstringbean
Summary: The moment he made it to the surface, he was booking it out of the house and made no effort to stop. When panic set in with Eddie Kaspbrak, it failed to stop until he was absolutely sure he was out of danger. He was blocks away from Neibolt before he was able to stop for breath, and he was almost regretting tossing his inhaler into the fire while his lungs burned from the exercise. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his mind was swirling with questions he didn’t know the answers to.In which Eddie Kaspbrak gets the ending he deserves.





	some time can bring perspective that we need

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a day and didn't proofread enjoy

When Eddie woke up, everything was crumbling around him.

The rumbling ground underneath him tied in with the dirt flying into his eyes disoriented him more than the fact that he was even awake to begin with. Nevertheless, his fight-or-flight response kicked in and within seconds he was on his feet and looking for an exit. The others were nowhere to be found, and the way they’d come in was out of the question, so his last hope of making it out was to find another way to the surface.

Looking through the harsh wind and debris, Eddie could see a hole just large enough for him to crawl through, leading him through gray water and a current he could barely walk through on his own. If he was honest, the will to live and get out of that hellscape was overpowering any thoughts he had about potential diseases he could contract from the water.

The moment he made it to the surface, he was booking it out of the house and made no effort to stop. When panic set in with Eddie Kaspbrak, it failed to stop until he was absolutely sure he was out of danger. He was blocks away from Neibolt before he was able to stop for breath, and he was almost regretting tossing his inhaler into the fire while his lungs burned from the exercise. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his mind was swirling with questions he didn’t know the answers to.

_I died. I stopped breathing, and I died. How the fuck am I standing here?_

But, while he was catching his breath in the middle of a very quiet street, the sound of Richie’s heart-wrenching screams and pleas to save him did not fall on his ears.

**~*~**

Eddie couldn’t remember much about his hometown. He remembered how much he hated it and how he had absolutely no desire to revisit it despite his slight curiosity. Sometimes he’ll think about going on some sort of sadistic nostalgia-trip, maybe ride a bike to his old school the way he did as a kid. Maybe he could call up his old friends and they could have their Derry-cation together. That thought disappears each time he’d fail to recall a single one of his old friends’ names, and any idea of seeing that small town again vanishes like his memories.

He looked out the window of his office, drawing his attention away from the work he’d been hung up on to glance at a few leaves falling from the trees outside of the building. This autumn had been a harsh one, and Myra hadn’t let him forget about his allergies for a single moment. The inhaler in his desk drawer constantly made an appearance throughout the day, even at times he didn’t really feel like he needed it. Better to play it safe and take a puff now than end up somewhere unable to breathe.

When he looked back to the document on his computer, his eyes moved to the object on the corner of his desk. Eddie’s coworkers had gifted him a ticket to see a stand-up comedy set in town, possibly to be nice but perhaps to loosen him up since they knew how uptight he was and this comedian was apparently the most vulgar one running the circuit to date. Of course, he knew Myra wouldn’t want to go, as she had expressed her distaste for this comedian before, so he’d given the other half of the pair of tickets back so they could resell it or whatever they wanted to do. As it was, he was debating on giving the other ticket back as well and simply thanking them for the offer, but the more he thought about it, the more he was interested in going. After all, he never went anywhere without his wife aside from work, so in any case at least it’d give him a night to be his own person. And maybe he’d get some good laughs out of it, so what could go wrong?

Well, after several hours of arguing and promising to come home right after the show, Eddie was making his way to his seat of the decently sized theater. It wasn’t Radio City, but it wasn’t your average high school auditorium either. If he had to guess, it couldn’t fit more than about 2,500 people. Enough room for the seats to be spaced out and not worry about claustrophobia biting him in the ass, but not enough to get too loud and make it impossible to hear anything.

He had arrived early, so he swiftly shut off his cell phone in preparation for the show and began thumbing through the program an usher had handed him before reaching his seat just a few rows away from the stage. Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier. Huh. Something about that name rung a bell, but he just couldn’t seem to trace back that far in his mind. He’d been racking his brain all day and he was halfway to insanity from it. He decided that it was probably subliminal, that he’d heard the name in passing conversation or on tv and therefore it had a note of familiarity, so he shrugged it off.

Soon enough the lights dimmed and the audience cheering, growing louder when a man appeared on stage and greeted the roaring crowd. Eddie began to clap as well, mostly out of consideration since he knew nothing about this man or his comedic style.

“Thanks for being here tonight! You guys are great, I mean if I had the choice to go out tonight and watch a fuckhead talk about dicks or get shitfaced and eat Cheetos, I’d be at home right now.” Laughter erupted in the theater and Eddie…

Eddie was back to wondering why Richie Tozier seemed so familiar. His mannerisms, the lewd tone in his voice, even the way he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Everything was giving him déjà vu and he couldn’t explain how frustrating that was. How could he-

_“Hey Rich, your ten minutes are up.”_

_ “What are you talking about?” _

_ “The hammock, ten minutes each was the rule.”_

_ “I don’t see any sign,” the boy said, looking around for a sign he knew wasn’t there and making Eddie grow even more irritated._

_ “Are you being this way right now? Really? No no no no, why would there be a sign if it was a verbal agreement?!” he shot back, the two of them bickering back and forth as he jumped into the hammock and wrestled to get the other out. Eventually he gave up and settled on finding a spot that was comfortable enough for the two of them to fit. As much as Richie pissed him off sometimes, he couldn’t say that he hated him. Not even a little. Not even at all._

He realized when he came back into focus that he was gripping the armrests of his seat so harshly that the plastic underneath was hurting his fingertips, and quickly moved to make the pain stop. He began to remember it all. His town, his friends, that _fucking clown_, coming back, saving Richie…dying. How did he forget that all? Did Richie forget too, just like last time? His head was spinning and he instinctively pulled out his inhaler to take a large inhalation, even though it did fuck all to help with a panic attack. Luckily, he was able to calm down enough to put most of his thoughts aside. He did know that, despite Myra’s insisting, he would not be returning home the moment the show was over.

**~*~**

Richie had gotten the losers tickets to his new show. He wanted an opportunity to see them all again, and not in fucking Derry. What better time than now? He hadn’t spent the past six months writing his own brand new material for nothing, and his friends’ approval meant more to him than any fan’s did. So, with help from his manager, he had gotten four front row tickets.

Half an hour before he was to go on stage, he was pacing back and forth in the green room. Up until now, he had others writing his material, taking the safe route and sticking to a strict comedic style that worked. But with these new jokes, ones that told stories of his childhood and his friends, and now subtly told his sexuality, he was worried it wouldn’t go over well with his audience.

_If only Eddie were here, _a voice said in the back of his mind. If he was here, Richie would be able to calm himself after being called an idiot and told to chill the fuck out. If he was here, Richie would be fine.

If he was here, the noise in his head would go away. The nightmares would stop. The ache in his chest at the thought of Eddie Kaspbrak would disappear.

But he wasn’t, so it won’t.

His manager opened the door and told him it was showtime, and every thought that had previously plagued his mind dissipated. He needed to focus, no time for dread now. _Now’s not the time to be a crybaby. Funny bitch or bust._

The sight of his friends cheering him on in the front row as soon as he walked on stage helped to somewhat heal the heartache, but it still lingered all throughout the show.

**~*~**

Eddie managed to get through the crowd of people once the show ended and made his way to the stage door. He needed to see Richie, to see if he remembered him. And if he did, Eddie wanted to know why he couldn’t remember before seeing him.

Unfortunately, there was already a whole other crowd waiting for the comedian at the stage door as well, all pushing and shouting about wanting to be first for an autograph and a selfie. With a sigh, Eddie stood at the back for a few minutes until he somehow ended up getting caught in the shoving of the crowd. The amount of people surrounding him tying in with the collection of screaming and cursing was making the rising panic in the man unsurprising. He moved to grab his inhaler from his pocket, and his stomach dropped when his hand was flush against the fabric. He left his inhaler in the theater seat.

So he had survived a demonic human-eating clown _twice_, literally died, barely escaped a collapsing house only to die from a panic-turned-asthma attack. Perfect.

“Hey, hey! Step the fuck back, be decent fuckin’ people!” A voice called out, one that Eddie recognized, sounding stern but still maintaining a lilt of jokingness. Everyone started to move away and Eddie felt like he could actually function again, but it was cut down by his inability to get a full breath in.

“Hey man, are you alright?” Another voice asked, one that he also recognized. He still couldn’t look up, too busy stressing at his lack of air, but he knew it was Ben.

“Y-Yeah…I….asthma…in-inhaler….left in….seat…” he gasped out almost too slowly to be discernable.

“Dude, you’re an adult and you left behind the _one thing_ you really need?”

“Shut up, Richie. What seat were you in? I can run and grab it.” Bev. If he wasn’t so caught up in his wheezing and coughing, he’d be smiling at her. Instead, he weakly pulled his ticket from his pocket- the one he’d forgotten to put his inhaler back into- and handed it to her. She didn’t pause after analyzing the paper and ran off to retrieve the medication.

In the meantime, he heard Richie tell security to bring him back to the green room, and mentioned they’d be back to check on him shortly. So for the next few minutes, he sat on the small couch, clutching his chest and struggling for breath. The sound of the door opening only triggered nerves in him that he wasn’t ready to face. His plan had been to wait at the stage door, as Richie if he recognized him, then go from there. But now, he was backstage having an asthma attack and feeling as though he had been backed into a corner.

“I found it under your seat. You should probably be a bit more careful next time,” Beverly said, her tone somehow sounding less serious than before as she handed him the inhaler and he finally raised his head to take a deep breath in. When he could finally open his eyes without seeing stars, he glanced over at Beverly, who was in total shock. “…Eddie?”

He had to bite back a sad laugh before responding. “I guess that answers whether or not you recognize me.”

That broke the spell and she reached out to grab his face. “No, no no no no- that’s impossible, you’re dead!”

“Exactly what I thought when I woke up in that cavern. Bev…do they- I mean, do you all…?” he couldn’t finish his sentence. Every minute detail was coming back and overwhelming him. He took another puff of his inhaler.

“We remember. What- why- how- Eddie, why did you let us think you were dead?! We’ve been…oh God, _Richie’s _been-“

“I didn’t know who you all were until an hour ago. Something about Richie just…I don’t know, helped me remember, I guess. Fuck, I’m going fucking insane.”

Another knock on the door made Eddie jump and his heart was suddenly back to its erratic rhythm. Another puff of his inhaler, another deep breath.

The door opened and suddenly the Losers Club was back to six. Four sets of eyes landed on Eddie, and looked back at them all with an expression that could only be identified as a mix of intrigue and apprehension. Everyone looked the same as he remembered, but they all had something to them that was off. But out of all of them, he couldn’t stop looking at Richie. Richie, who was staring at him and looking as though he had stopped breathing. Whose typical smile had dropped the moment he’d laid eyes on him. Who, after a beat of silence dropped to his knees in shock. “…You guys told me to tell you if I think I’ve gone off the deep end, well, I think I’m hallucinating,” he mumbled calmly, his voice breaking and making him sounds as though he was mere seconds away from crying.

“You’re not hallucinating, Rich.” Eddie stood up from the couch and made sure his inhaler ended up in his pocket. He explained everything to them. Dying in the cavern, waking up as it disintegrated around him, finding a new way out, and barely making it out alive. “When I could finally breathe again, I just…started walking. The further away I got, the foggier everything became. I found a payphone and called Myra, and from there I found my way back home. I forgot everything and- well, everyone, I guess.”

The room was silent, and Eddie hated it. They’ve never been this quiet before. Awkward atmospheres were usually filled with mom jokes and laughter, but now it was the prime location to hear a pin drop. That is, until Richie stood up and closed the space between him and Eddie to pull him into the tightest hug possible. It probably wasn’t a great idea since Eddie had just regain his full oxygen intake, but he didn’t want to pull away as he hugged him back just as tight.

“I thought I lost you, you fucking asshole,” Richie whispered, though the malice that the phrase should’ve taken was replaced with sadness and hurt.

Eddie didn’t reply. He just hugged him back and sighed as the others joined in a group hug. This time, he wasn’t bother by the people surrounding him. In fact, he was quite content by it.

**~*~**

“Where the hell are we going, Rich?” Eddie asked the man behind the wheel, checking for the third time that his seatbelt was fully clicked in and secured. He trusted Richie enough, but he drove like a madman and even the trust they had couldn’t settled the risk analyzer’s nerves.

For the past few months, the group of old friends had tried to make sense of Eddie’s memory loss while the others had been perfectly fine. After enough research, Mike had been able to come up with an explanation that they had all been content with.

_“After you…died,” he’d said, Richie flinching at the word out of habit, “The bond must have broken from you before we killed it. So your memories still faded when you left Derry. But seeing us again must have brought it back, resealed and fixed however it splintered off before. That’s the only way I see how it happened. As for how you came back from death…I don’t think anything could explain that.”_

Richie looked over at the man with a smile that was all too genuine. “That, my dearest Spaghetti, is a surprise.”

“Don’t fucking call me that. You know I hate it.”

“Your mom didn’t hate it when I-“

“Beep Beep, asshat!”

Richie just laughed and glanced between Eddie and the road ahead of him. “Patience, my dearest Eduardo, we’ll be there shortly.”

As the car made its way over small hills and the occasional pothole, Eddie let his mind wander to the whirlwind of events that had taken place in the just a few months. Upon hearing that Eddie had regained a connection with his childhood friends, Myra went completely crazy, telling him that it was either her or them, to which Eddie had swiftly filed for a divorce. After all, he had only married Myra for the stability of a marriage and that she was something familiar to him since she had the matching mannerisms of his mother. But, unlike his friends, she had not fought a murderous clown twice with him and still treated him like a normal person after. So, a divorce it was, and by his side the whole time was Richie. He had helped him pack his things from Myra’s and move him into his new apartment, had helped distract him with shit to do when he became overwhelmed with the finer details of his divorce, and had thrown a bitchin’ party once everything had been finalized and he was finally again, a single man. Even as an adult, Richie still had his back and was able to playfully bully him all the while.

And, as he spent more time with the man, Eddie’s old childhood crush came back full force, now less like a “crush” and more resembling heart wrenching unrequited love. It was a happy hell that Eddie was used to by this point, the shoves and friendly touches still making his heart skip a beat and his face heat up, but also being followed by the harsh reality that he didn’t have a chance in hell.

He wasn’t able to read the whole sign, but he could see the word “Derry” as they flew past it and Eddie quickly turned to look at Richie. “Richie, we’re not-“

“We’re not going near Neibolt, don’t freak,” Richie quickly assured him, allowing Eddie to take a breath of relief as he sunk further into his seat.

Within minutes they were parking on the side of a road and at first, Eddie didn’t understand. Why were they parked at the kissing bridge? “What are we doing here? I thought you wanted to drive by my old place and make a ‘haha I fucked your mom’ joke?”

“Oh, no I’m still gonna do that,” Richie replied with a chuckle, unbuckling his seatbelt and stepping out of the car. “I gotta show you something first though.”

That confusing statement made Eddie hesitate to get out of the vehicle at first, before he gave in and followed Richie out of the car and to the bridge. He watched as the man appeared to have a war with himself judging by his facial expressions before he sighed and bent down to point at one of the many carvings in the wood.

Eddie couldn’t get a good look at it from where he was standing, so he followed suit in crouching down to read. It was horrendous handwriting, partially due to it being craved into a plank of wood with a knife, but it was clear as day.

** _R + E_ **

And Eddie _laughed._

He laughed to cover up the anger he felt at all the time they missed, at the fact that Richie had to believe for almost a year that he was dead. He laughed at the ridiculousness of Richie driving them hundreds of miles to show him this carving in what he could only assume or at least hope was his love confession. It was just so…_Richie._

But now it was his turn.

While he was laughing, he noticed Richie’s nervous demeanor turn dejected then angry, and looked as though he was about to bite Eddie’s head off for laughing at him, so he gripped the other’s wrist and dulled his laughing to the occasional giggle. Instead of talking, he just pulled them up to stand and guided the other further down the bridge. After a second of scanning and looking, he finally pointed to another carving, faint and almost unable to read.

** _E + R_ **

“We’re so fucking stupid,” Eddie said softly once he stopped his giggling, staring at the carving and nervously taking Richie’s hand.

“Eds.”

He turned his head to look at Richie, who’s anger was now long gone and _there was that smile. _“Yeah Rich?”

Richie raised his hand to rest it on Eddie’s face, guiding his thumb over the scar from Bowers’ knife that will probably never fade. He began to lean in and Eddie closed his eyes, until he heard the other whisper, “I fucked your mom.”

In an instant, his eyes were open and he pushed Richie away, trying to appear upset despite the smile he couldn’t erase. “Fuck you, trashmouth!”

He watched Richie fake being hurt by the push, earning more laughs until finally, _finally, _he pushed Eddie gently against the bridge, careful not to break the fragile old wood, and kissed him.

And after hours of talking and reminiscing, and mostly kissing, the two left happily in Richie’s car, with two sets of initials now carved deeper into a bridge they’ll never come back to see again.

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to the chaotic gc that inspired me to write this love y'all
> 
> Follow me on twitter @allin_ev_itable


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